The ChangingMinds Blog!

A rather intense night at the opera

This last week, I was in Athens, helping a friend do up his flat there. It
was an interesting experience, including watching Greek negotiation, which seems
to involve high-volume discussion and a lot of hand waving. It was also amazing
experiencing the local driving, where road rules seemed more advisory than
mandatory.

Anyway, I got the chance there to go to see Mozart's Don Giovanni in Herodes
Atticus, the ancient Greek amphitheatre on the side of the Acropolis. I'm not
really an opera buff but the location made it an unmissable pull. And indeed it
was spectacular and something I will never forget. It also got me thinking about
why people like opera.

The goal of all art is, arguably, to stimulate emotion. It's to make you feel
something, whether it is anger, fear, sadness, happiness or some combination of
these. When we experience emotion, we feel aroused and alive, as opposed to the
dull and numbed state that we often find ourselves in. Music achieves these
through complex patterning of sound frequencies, that range from the familiar to
the novel. Theatrical productions tell stories of human emotion that provoke
empathetic responses.

Opera combines both music and theatrical stimulation in a way that
intensifies the emotional experience. Operatic stories and singing also tend to
be rather exaggerated, leading to further intensification. Bright lights,
spectacular costumes, complex sets, all are designed to make you feel more
deeply. And putting on the show in an ancient amphitheatre added to all this.
The drama even got accidentally heightened more when a woman in front of me
fainted and the parametics swooped in. The show did not stop and the lady
recovered, but on top of everything else I was close to emotional overload.

So will I remember it? Of course. We remember things that have strong
emotions attached, which can be both a boon and a bane, depending on how
positive or negative the experience was. In this case, I have intensely happy
memories.